I’m getting excited, because ABC News 24 is nearly here. Since I first started watching TV, I remember the 6 channels our TV set could pick up: ABC (2), Seven (7), Nine (9), Ten (10), SBS (28) and Briz 31 (31). Some of the shows on these channels were OK, but a lot of it was reality TV, because that’s what the people like apparently. I was always jellious of the people who had Foxtel, because they had access to stacks of Channels, such as Sky News and the Discovery Channel.

Well Digital TV is set to change this finally. With the ABC launching it’s 24 hour news channel soon, free to air TV will have just made a massive jump in catching up to the content of pay TV, and Sky News will likely be crapping their pants at this moment. One HD has made little impact on Fox Sports, because covering sporting matches involves rights and other legal messes, but covering news can be done by anyone, and the ABC are probably the best in the country at this. I also suspect other channels on Foxtel will be watching the extra channels that Seven, Nine and Ten are planning to launch within the next year or so. Even SBS has 2 more channels planned, and the ABC has some ideas about broadcasting ABC5 and ABC6 in the next decade.

So at the moment we have moved from this

• ABC (Channel 2)
• Seven (Channel 7)
• Nine (Channel 9)
• Ten (Channel 10)
• SBS (Channel 28)
• Briz 31 Or Equivilent Community Station (Channel 31)

To this:

• One HD (Channel 1 & 11) – 24 Hour Sports Channel
• ABC1 (Channel 2 & 21)
• SBS One (Channel 3 & 31)
• Seven Digital (Channel 7 & 71)
• Nine Digital (Channel 9 & 91)
• Ten Digital (Channel 10)
• One Digital (Channel 12) – Non HD Feed of One HD (Plans To Replace This Channel With 10’s Second Multichanel)
• ABC HD (Channel 20) – Offically Decommissioned July 7 2010 To Make Way For ABC News 24
• ABC2 (Channel 22)
• ABC3 (Channel 23) – Dedicated Children’s Programming Channel
• ABC News 24 (Channel 24) – 24 Hour News & Current Affairs Channel
• SBS Two (Channel 32)
• SBS 3 (Channel 33) – Currently Broadcasting SBS One (Plans For SBS3 Coming Soon)
• SBS 4 (Channel 34) – Currently Broadcasting SBS One (Plans For SBS4 Coming Soon)
• 31 Digital (Channel 44) – Brisbane’s Community TV Channel (Known As TVS in Sydney & C31 In Melbourne)
• 7 HD (Channel 70) – High Definition Version Of Seven Digital With Some Unique Content)
• 7TWO (Channel 72)
• 7 Digital 3 – Currently Broadcasting Seven Digital (Plans For 7’s Second Multichannel Coming Soon)
• Nine High Definition (Channel 90) – High Definition Version Of Nine Digital
• Go! (Channel 99) – Youth Channel With Some Older Shows Too!

Red = Decommisioned

Blue = Currently Broadasting Another Channel’s Feed & Plans To Use That Channel In The Future

That’s around 20 channels to pick from within the next few years (there’s about 16 at the current moment) and with digital and how it works, there could be many more channels if the networks wished to add them. The same thing is happening in the radio space too with Digital Radio (I’ll write about them soon hopefully), but it’s still a fair way off before the analog signals get switched off there. Foxtel aren’t going away anywhere, they still have the stronghold on sports coverage, commercial free movies and overseas content, but news is going to be a tough one to sell now. It’s exciting stuff, bring on the complete digital TV switchover in 2013!